


Breathe

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: After the Movie, Breathing, Elisa remembers all the bad stuff, Fear, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hugs, Interspecies Romance, Post-Canon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, i guess, the sweet underwater life of elisa esposito and her godly prince
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 13:53:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13789098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Post movie.When Elisa remembers all the bad times, as how she almost him so many times, there's always something that calms her down.Elisa, him, and their sweet underwater life.





	Breathe

 

She sometimes was afraid, despite her much calmer life underwater. Things were better now – sometimes they spent the whole day swimming, sometimes he invented a song and she danced to it. On some rare occasions, she went out of the water in some small town, and sometimes, if the day was wet enough, she found him some clothes not to stand out so much and they watched a movie, or saw some live music in some place they don't know, outside the water.

 

But mostly it was just them and the sea, and the absolute peace it brought. She'd taught him all the word now, even ones they probably wouldn't use on the ocean like telephone, or mop. But it was good that they could talk, it was good how much more they'd gotten to know each other. He was fascinating in every thing he said and did, in that incredibly rich story behind his abilities, in all that he'd lived. Elisa was often shocked by how lucky she'd been, and couldn't believe where she was – the fact that she had what she felt is the best companion in the universe.

 

She never thought she would find anybody, because of her problem. Maybe somebody who pitied her, or somebody who thought they could abuse her better because she couldn't talk back. There were a lot of men out there who hurt their wives, she knew, she'd seen. So obviously she never thought she could get somebody who loved her as she loved them, somebody that would be there for her, somebody who she could share everything with. A happy ending, her own fairytale prince.

 

But she had, and after so long being a lonely orphan with nothing more than a couple of well-meaning, the fact that she had someone she could be intimate with... It frightened her sometimes, how beautifully things had ended, how well everything was going now. Sure, there were days when she missed the outer world, there were days when she felt lost at that ginormous ocean... But they were minor problems. She was happy and calm down there, there was nobody talking down on her, and she had someone who she loved that loved her back.

 

Things were good.

 

Still, she was afraid sometimes. Not that she would grow to hate her new life, or that she was missing out on a good, decent, american life, but that she would lose him, somehow, that he would be taken from her. They had taken him prisoner once, and technology was advancing right before their eyes. They probably still wantied him, to study him, to know what made him tick, to vivisect him. (Probably also now her too, because her gills had made her become an amphibian woman, which could probably also now be used for science and war).

 

She could often remember, clear as day, not just the confined space and the chains of the place where he was kept, but much worse things. She remembered Strickland torturing him with that electric rod, she remembered those godawful noises when he was electrocuted with that rod, she remembered his blood, red like hers, spreading through the floor of the lab, covering everything, so red, so deeply red... She remembered the hatred of men like Strickland, who only want hut him and call him an “it”, a tool for their nefarious ends.

 

They had almost lost him so many times, and he had suffered so much before getting back into the sea. She often has nightmares about the wheezing, that terrible sound that he made when he was out of the water for too long and couldn't breathe well. How it hurt her to hear it, how much it had been hurting him. She remembered him coughing up blood in her bathtub and losing all those scales, his own skin....

 

And the world outside was still immersed in a silent war, men trying to outdo each other, with weaponry, with science, with something that said “look we're better, we can kill you quicker and more efficiently, we have the key to being better than you now” and somebody probably had left some trace of the “asset” as they called, and they could catch him back, and hurt him, and torture him and kill him. Make him suffer before they executed him.

 

And she couldn't bear it. When she was alone she could deal with being alone with all the pain the world decided to put her through, it was nothing, she could recover. But him.... maybe he could recover too (more than recover, her damn lover had healing powers), but she couldn't stand it, not even the smallest thing. She worried about everything, when he was too sleepy, when he coughed when they were outside, for everything. The wheezing, the blood, all those horrors needed to remain in the past. Nobody in the world was allowed to hurt him.

 

Not her prince.

 

He had suffered enough.

 

But she knew how possible it was that something like that would happen again, and this time they wouldn't have any Giles, or Zelda or any Dmitri to help them. And things would have turn out so much worse without them. Now that he had met him, now that he had gotten a partner in life, somebody who cherished as much as she did him, now that she had him in her life... She couldn't imagine being alone again, and she couldn't imagine a life without him. Didn't want to.

 

There was one things that always calmed he down when she afraid, though. Something that never failed. When Elisa seemed distressed, her prince would sginal for her to come and embrace her, let her head rest on his chest and they would stay like that for a long time, maybe hours (who knew? Who cared anymore about what time it was) and after a long time all her fears disappeared, dissipated, as if they never were.

 

Many aspects of their arrangement brought her peace: the contact with her beloved, and how he held on to her, with his arms gently wrapped around her; how the rest the world the world seemed to stop existing when they were embracing, as if they were one thing (you.and me. Together. Always) and nothing else in the world could touch them, but mostly.... it was his breathing.

 

When she had her head on his chest like that, she could hear breathe perfectly, in and out, in a perfect rhythim, in constant harmony. It was her favourite song in the worls. It was soothing and it was beautiful and it made everything right in the world. It meant that he was okay, and she was with him, and they were still in the sea, and they had outran all of their troubles. Listening to him breathe (in.and out.i love you.i'm here) meant that she didn't have to worry.

 

They were alive, they were together, they were breathing perfectly soundly, and nothing was wrong. His breathing was echoed in the sea currents, who often felt like a giant person breathing (in and out, sometimes more angrily, generally just calm) and for Elisa, it was as if this giant person who was the ocean was protecting them, wanted them no harm to come to them as much as he wanted her prince to be safe.

 

And they were, safe, together, breathing.

 

Any time that she wanted, she could ask for her beloved o come and listen to him breathe, and then listen to the whole ocean breathe, and none of the nonsense of the dry land could get her, or take those moments away from her.

 

When she was listening to that breathing, there was nothing but bliss.

 

Bliss, and not aggression or hatred were one of the main ingredients of her underwater life.

A life in which she felt blessed, in which she could feel joyous for being who she was and how she was.

 

A life in which she was complete.... and never alone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked!!!
> 
> I loved this movie so much and I want them to be happy forever.... HAPPY FOREVER. 
> 
> Anyways, if you liked please do tell, I need feedback like our beloved asset needs salt in his water. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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